1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film charging apparatus for a photographic printer for charging and positioning a film at a position where the film is subjected to an operation such as a printing operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
For effecting an operation such as a printing operation on a film in a photographic printer, it is necessary to set the film at-an appropriate position with respect to an image recorded on the film.
To do this, a positioning means is provided for restricting a movable range of the film relative to a film mount so as to fixedly retain the film per se or a holder holding the film at the predetermined position.
On the other hand, with such photographic printer, in addition to e.g. the printing operation on the film with restricting the movable range of the film to a fixed mount, there is sometimes effected a so-called trimming operation in which the film or its holder is moved so as to freely vary an area of the film to be subjected to the desired operation such as the printing operation.
When such trimming operation is effected, the film cannot be moved freely if its movable range is uniformly restricted by the positioning means. Accordingly, in order to allow for both the positioning operation of the film on the film mount and the trimming operation, the convention has provided a construction for enabling switchover between a position-fixing state for fixedly positioning the film and a position-releasing state for releasing the position of the position of the film.
As such construction described above, the convention specifically provided a positioning projection on the film mount. Normally, after the film or its holder is set at the predetermined position with the aid of the projection, a fixing cover is completely closed to fix the film or holder at this position. And, this operation is repeated. Then, only when a trimming operation is to be effected, the projection is caused to be retracted away from the film mount, so as to render the film or holder freely movable on the mount.
With the above-described construction, however, for each trimming operation, the above-described procedure is needed. In particular, when the trimming operations are effected in an intermittent manner, the apparatus operation becomes very troublesome. In this respect, improvement has been desired.
In view of the above state of the art, the main object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which allows a trimming operation with greater convenience.